


I have no excuses, can't say I wasn't told

by SecondStarOnTheLeft



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, The Edge Chronicles - Paul Stewart & Chris Riddell
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-24
Updated: 2014-07-24
Packaged: 2018-02-10 06:54:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2015304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/pseuds/SecondStarOnTheLeft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa had been training as a healer since she was nine years old - she hadn't had the stomach for the tanning vats, or the butchery, so it had been decided that it was best that she make herself and her neat stitches useful. </p><p>It was going to take a great deal more than a line of stitches to patch up the young sky pirate captain's leg, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I have no excuses, can't say I wasn't told

Sansa thought it was a storm until Bran came running in from outside to tell her otherwise.

"Two skyships, Sansa!" he announced, not even acknowledging that she was  _quite_ busy with Patrek Mallister's burns, and that she had no time for Bran's fancies. "Da says that one's belonging to a Leaguesman, but the other's a  _sky pirate_ ship!"

It made sense that Bran would be excited over the sky pirates, Sansa knew. He had rarely met any of them, training with old Brynden the oakelf over at Whitetree as he was, but Sansa knew them well enough. They never moored at the ironwood stand but there was one of them injured, and as the stand was so much closer to Coldoaks than to any of their neighbouring villages, and Sansa was the youngest, fittest healer in Coldoaks, well, she was the one sent to tend them. She saw the pirates more often than just about anyone in the village, by her reckoning, because she was the only one who met with  _all_ of them.

She ignored Bran regardless, partly because she had stopped being excited by visitors a long while ago and partly because Patrek, she knew from experience, was a terrible patient if left waiting even a moment too long. Bran hopped from one foot to the other, worrying at the spikes of his hair and smearing tildergrease on everything he touched. She'd have to clean that later - one of the first things she'd been taught, when she started her training, was to keep everything as clean as possible.

Patrek thanked her twice and made as if to linger a while when she tied off the bandages on his arm, but rambled off good-naturedly enough when she shooed him away. Bran whined something about wanting her to hurry  _up_ , but she took the time to pack away all her supplies first. A tidy cabin was a healer's best asset, after all.

Right enough, it was a battle instead of a storm - not far from the ironwood stand, there were two sky ships, one much larger than the other. It was disappointingly small - the noise she had taken for thunder was the echo of cannon fire, but beyond that there's nothing but a series of flashes and sweeping sails.

Until, that was, the smaller of the two skyships listed sharply to the left and began to fall.

 

* * *

 

Arya was Sansa's preferred companion for these excursions, largely because she didn't try to get in Sansa's way and prevent her from doing her job. Arya was as practical as Ma, and knew that the best way to get the visitors away quickly was to handle them as quickly as possible - which included healing them as soon as they arrived.

The crew of the ship were scurrying around under the tree in which they'd been wrecked, trying to lower something - someone, several people - to the ground with a system of pullies. Sansa drew close to Arya when Da motioned for them to halt, watching carefully to see if she could discern how many of them were injured.

They seemed to be mostly fourthlings, which could be good or bad - many fourthlings hated slaughterers, for the colour of the skin, for the way they lived, for the way they made their livelihood - but there was a slaughterer with them, which was a good omen, and a waif as well. 

Sansa had never met a waif before, had only heard strange stories of the creatures from the Nightwoods who could hear and hunt thoughts. She was pleased that the waif before her - a waterwaif, if she remembered rightly - looked more like the drawings from her books than the queer tales her uncle had brought back from his travels.

 _I am glad you find me pleasing, Mistress Stark_ a soft voice echoed in her head, and she jumped, looked back to the waif to find her smiling.  _I see you are a healer - you may tell your father that we mean no harm. We do ask your help, though._

"Da," Sansa said quietly. "I think it's safe for us to go to them."

Right enough, as soon as she said it, a tall fourthling in a long leather coat, his parawings trailing behind him, came running for them. He was very handsome, even with his face streaked with smoke and muck and his hands stained with blood.

"Please," he said urgently, "please, I beg you, my brother is badly injured - Taena says one of you is a healer?"

"Me," Sansa said, "I am the healer - where is he?"

 

* * *

 

Sansa had trained as a healer since she was nine years old - ten long years spent learning everything she could from the others in the village, and from the healers in Whitetree and Blackhearth when she visited, and from the books that had been carefully looked after since their arrival in the village.

She hadn't had the stomach for the tanning vats, or the butchery, so it had been decided that it was best that she make herself and her neat stitches useful. She liked her work, liked that it made her useful and that it allowed her an escape from the herding and tanning and butchering and fighting her siblings were so good at without seeming to try.

It was going to take a great deal more than a line of stitches to patch up the young sky pirate captain's leg, though.

"It looks almost as if he's been bitten," she said to Arya as they jogged along beside the litter. "Nearly like a whitecollar wolf got at him."

"No wolf," the captain's brother said. "The Leaguesmaster's personal guard, yes, but no wolves. Not in the air."

Sansa looked to Arya, confused - what sort of man could do this to another? - and Arya merely shrugged, waving it down as a promise to explain later.

"I may not be able to save the leg," Sansa warned. "With so much of the muscle cut away, and so much blood loss-"

"Just save him, if you can, my lady," his brother said, hitching their waif's arm higher over his shoulders to better help her along. 

Sansa didn't want to promise anything, because the captain had lost an awful lot of blood, but he was still somewhat conscious, and that was a good sign, surely?

"What is his name?" she asked, urging them through the village toward her cabin. Someone would find Luwin and the others, because Sansa did not think that she could do this alone, but for now, she had to find all the information she could. 

"Willas," his brother said. "And I- I'm Garlan, my lady. Tyrells of Undertown, at your service. In your debt, I believe."

"Save your thanks," Arya said. "There is a long night ahead of us all, Garlan Tyrell of Undertown. Go - Da'll be wanting to talk with you, since he can't talk with your brother. Go on."

 

* * *

 

It was almost noon when Sansa clambered up the ladder to the hammock, and she slept to near midnight - it was full dark when she woke up, and the whole village was awake and alive and busy, all marvelling over their new guests.

She'd had to take the pirate's leg, while Robb and one of the fourthlings from the crew held him down, but at least that had allowed her to cauterise it, had stopped the bleeding. He'd had other wounds, too - a deep slash across his back, other cuts on his legs, and one wicked slice on his left cheek. She'd cleaned and packed and sewed them all closed, and then she'd turned to the rest of the crew, setting broken bones and sewing wounds and, in one terrible case, easing the way for a man's passing.

Her hands were sore, her shoulders aching, but all her friends and family and even people she hardly knew congratulated her on her work yesterday, and she knew it had been well worth missing half a night's work to have saved those lives.

Luwin was drying his hands on a towel, standing outside her cabin, when she went to check on her patients.

"All seem to be healing well enough," he said briskly. "The captain is waking, I think - it might be worth it to burn lullabee in the cabin tonight, Sansa, the better to keep him soothed."

She promised she would, and went off in search of Robb, to ask him to carry in some lullabee wood for her - bouyant though the wood was, enough to keep a fire going all night would be heavy, and she was just too tired to carry it. Robb agreed, rolling his eyes and smiling, and Sansa returned to her cabin, this time avoiding everyone so she would actually get to check on her patients.

All of them were up and about - on crutches or with arms in slings, true enough, but alive and alert and reasonably well, all considered. They all spoke with the sort of accent Sansa associated more with the Leaguesmen than the sky pirates with whom they traded, which was odd, and they seemed altogether too  _clean_ for sky pirates, too, their boots too high a quality of leather, their swords too well made. 

Sansa did not know much about metalwork beyond how to sharpen the blade of a knife or an axe, but she knew the look of the swords most sky pirates carried - great sweeping cutlasses were the style, more often than not, to match with the sweeping leather coats and the great big beards and ponytails. Few of these men wore beards, fewer still wore their hair long, and every one of them wore a long, straight sword, what Da had once called  _Undertown made_ , on his hip.

It was all very strange, but she didn't let herself consider it when she had the captain to think about.

 

* * *

 

"We're not pirates," Garlan said, glad at least that Taena was with him. He was still unsure of the waif, but she had said something to Willas that had convinced him to trust her, and she  _had_ given them enough information about Tywin's armies that they'd managed nearly a year on the run, a year in which they'd gathered half the ransom money and a little more.

"But you're not Leaguesmen," Master Stark said, folding his arms and half-looking to Master Umber, who stood head and shoulders above Garlan, unusually massive for a slaughterer. "No matter the rings you wear and the swords you carry. Undertowners, yes, but not Leaguesmen."

Garlan hesitated, but Taena's voice whispered behind his ear,  _You can trust them, they will help us_ , so he told them everything.

"Two years ago," he said, "my family's house in the Western Quays was burned to the ground. Only my mother and father were there at the time - my younger brother and our sister are both in studying in Sanctaphrax, as was I, at the time, and my older brother, Willas, who your daughter is tending, was visiting with our sister."

Garlan took a breath, directed his gaze to the table, and continued.

"Our parents perished, of course. Our father was Leaguesmaster at the time, Mace Tyrell - I know now if you ever dealt with him, but he was fair, or as fair as he could be when he had the whole of the Leagues to please. His successor... It was his successor that set the fire. We have proof of it, incontrovertible proof, but because the bastard now wears the chain and the mitre, there is nothing we can do."

"His men were chasing you, then?"

"His personal hammerhead guard," Garlan said bitterly. "General Tywin and those mad twins of his, Cersei and Jaime, they've been hunting us from the day we left Undertown. The Leaguesmaster is mad, you see, thinks our father did him out of a fortune in all kinds of ridiculous things, bloodoak and scentwood, marsh-gems and mire-pearls - the fool wants the pelt of a  _skullpelt,_ for Sky's sake!"

"We may be able to help with some of it," Master Stark said. "We have an arrangement with the woodtrolls at Whitetree, they will give you a good price on the lumber you need, both for your bounty and for your ship. We will supply you with ropes and whatever leathers you need, and whatever is needed to tend your wounded on your journey."

Garlan could not quite believe his ears - every other settlement they'd chosen across their journey had charged the Sky for everything, and had been impolite and unhelpful as possible. Why was this place different?

His surprise must have shown on his face, for when Master Stark stood up, he smiled grimly.

"Aerys Targaryen is known to us," he said. "We had heard of the new Leaguesmaster, if not how he took the chain of office. He is no friend to Coldoaks."

 

* * *

 

Willas woke slowly, breathed in the sweet smell of burning scentwood, and opened his eyes.

For a moment, before the bleariness cleared, he might almost have been in the bedroom he'd slept in all his life, in their house on the Quays, and then with a blink it might have been his tiny sleeping cupboard in the Knight's Academy, or his barely-a-room in the School of Light and Darkness, or his cabin aboard the Rose.

But no, it was none of those places. It was a small, neatly kept cabin built all of wood - ironwood struts, lufwood panels, heavy hammelhorn fleece packing in what gaps there might have been. There, in the little stove, were the pale blue flames that bespoke the scentwood he'd smelled, and here, sitting in a chair by his bed, working on some sort of embroidery by candlelight, was a slaughterer girl.

Willas had never known many slaughterers, beyond Domeric, who served in his crew. Oh, there were plenty of them in Undertown, sure enough, but aside from sometimes meeting them in the Bloodoak, well. He lived in the Quays, and spent most of his time between the Quays and Sanctaphrax. He hadn't met many slaughterers because he simply didn't spend time in the parts of the city they frequented.

This one, she was a pretty girl, from the spikes of her tildergreased hair to the toes of her tilderleather boots. Red hair, red skin, deep brown eyes that watched him curiously as he tried to sit up. Very pretty indeed, he noted, and wondered what she'd look like by daylight.

"It's good to see you awake," she said. "Can you sit up yourself? I'd like to check your head for bumps and knocks."

He could sit up, and told her so, and she hummed quietly as she poked and prodded at his head. She smelled of something sweet and herbal, which surprised him - he'd half assumed all slaughterers would smell of leather and meat and tanning vats, but he was glad they didn't. 

"You seem well enough," she said. "Let's check that leg of yours, shall we?"

He hadn't noticed that his leg had been cut off above the knee, and he vomited all over her lovely boots when she turned back the blankets.

After she'd cleaned herself up and made him gulp down a cup of some sort of sour-smelling tea that settled his stomach and his nerves all at once, she sat on the edge of his bed.

"I really do have to check the wound," she said gently, resting her hand over his. "Would you rather look away?"

He considered it for a long moment, in the sweet-smelling quiet, and then shook his head.

She unwound the bandages carefully, as though making sure not to hurt him, and he watched all the while. Her fingers seemed very dark against his skin, but less so against the deep pink scarring from the cauterisation, and the candlelight gleamed on her greased up hair.

"Why do slaughterers spike their hair?" he asked, and she laughed.

"Why do fourthlings not?" she asked in return, and he blushed. "It's simply one of those things that we do, Captain - I've never known a slaughterer to not grease their hair into spikes. I imagine there are things you cannot imagine a fourthling doing without, hmm?"

She went back to her humming as he considered this, too, and felt ashamed for his thoughtless question.

"Where are we precisely, my lady?" he asked. "We were headed for a place called Whitetree-"

"And you are not far from it," she assured him. "Your brother has already met with the elders there, and they are already working towards an arrangement. You need only rest here, and heal as best you can."

 

* * *

 

Captain Willas Tyrell, who was only pirating because he had a brother and a sister back home whose lives hang in the balance, did not heal quickly, much to Sansa's frustration. Three Sky-cursed _months_  into seeing to his care, when her temper was running short, he startled her by beginning to  _laugh,_ of all things.

"I am sorry, Sansa," he said, shaking his head and swaying a little on his crutches - he had contracted blood poisoning, likely from his visiting crew, just the week before, and was hardly strong enough to stand, but he had insisted on leaving the cabin. He looked very different under the moon than he had by candlelight, the lines of his face sharper and his eyes flat and silver. "I hadn't realised I was such bad company that you wanted rid of me so badly."

She blushed hard at that, at his laughter and his smiles and the knowing looks Arya and Ma sent her way - although Ma seemed more worried than anything, which was strange, unless she thought Sansa was going to go the way of Da's sister. Sansa knew better than to do that, though, no matter that Willas was utterly charming, that he told her stories and sang her songs from Undertown and Sanctaphrax, that he described the twin cities for her not as the hells Da had always said they were, but as something as wild as the Deepwoods, in their own way.

Sansa had always wanted to see Undertown, even after what had happened to Da's sister, and hearing Willas talk about it only made her want to see it more.

All while she'd been working Willas through pains and fevers and  _blood poisoning,_ his brother and Da had been working on trade, and with the woodtrolls of Whitetree, on repairs to Willas' ship. Sansa had seen him looking skyward, to where it was moored at the ironwood stand, and she thought he looked very beautiful, wistful and sad.

Oh, well. Ma wasn't all that wrong to be worried, and Sansa was just glad that she hadn't let anyone know that Willas had kissed her half a dozen times every night except when he'd been sick with the blood poisoning for the past three weeks. 

 

* * *

 

"I want you to come with me," he said, not daring to look at her. "I'd like to marry you, but even if you don't want me that way, I want your company. I want whatever you're willing to give me, really."

She tipped his face up with gentle, hard-worked fingers, her cheeks flushed deep purple under the red of her skin, and she kissed him, slow and long and deep.

"Ask my mother," she said. "Ma rules the elders - ask her, Willas. If you mean it. If this isn't just a way to bed me."

 

* * *

 

The Rose was a beautiful ship, and Sansa could see how proud Willas was of it.

"We're close to having the means to bring down the Leaguesmaster," he said quietly, showing her his little domain, one crutch and his new false leg slowing his pace but leaving him with a hand free to hold hers. He had had a ring forged for her, in the fourthling style, and it gleamed bright gold against her skin in a way that made her feel beautiful, almost as beautiful as when he helped her out of her clothes at night (and it was still so _strange_ , to sleep at night and work by day!) and back into them in the morning.

There was still his family to save, still danger to be escaped and fought, but Sansa didn't mind. It was all an adventure, and he looked at her as though she'd shown him the way to Riverrise, and she could face anything else so long as he kept smiling at her like that, the same way he'd smiled when he'd asked if  _all_ slaughterers greased their hair into spikes.

**Author's Note:**

> I FAIL, THIS IS ALSO TO BE EXPANDED UPON.
> 
> If you have questions about the Edge, I'm fullofstoryshapes on tumblr and this is one of my favourite things to talk about :D
> 
> Written for SansaWillasWeek on tumblr. 
> 
> Title from 'Lifted' by Naughty Boy feat. Emeli Sandé


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